(The Center Square) – The University of Michigan will be ending its partnership with a Chinese university, following national security concerns and a letter from U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., urging it to shutter the institute.
The University of Michigan “will terminate its longstanding partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China,” according to a news release.
The decision was confirmed by U-M President Santa Ono “following discussions with U.S. congressional leadership and internal U-M stakeholders,” the release said.
When U-M was reached for comment, director of public affairs Kay Jarvis referred The Center Square to the release.
“We will continue to pursue partnerships around the world as part of our academic mission,” Ono said in the release. “As we do so, we must also prioritize our commitment to national security.”
Ono did not respond to The Center Square’s request for comment.
The release states that the partnership’s conclusion “follows a recent report from the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party concerned with national security, and a letter from committee chair U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Michigan, communicating his concerns that the partnership had been compromised.”
A statement by Moolenaar sent to The Center Square said that “the University of Michigan is making the right decision in ending its joint institute with a Chinese university, and more of our nation’s universities should follow U-M’s action.”
“My committee has put a spotlight on the fact that too many American universities are collaborating with CCP researchers on critical technologies including weapons, artificial intelligence, and nuclear physics,” Moolenaar said.
Moolenaar stated that “the results of these collaborations could one day be turned against our country, and we cannot allow that to happen.”
“In U-M’s case, its Chinese joint institute partner was helping the CCP modernize its military, and then five students who came to Michigan from China through the joint institute ended up spying on Camp Grayling,” Moolenaar said.
“American universities should end these types of joint institutes and protect the security of our nation’s research.” Moolenaar said.
Moolenaar wrote in his letter to U-M that “research performed” at the school’s partnership “advances the [People’s Republic of China’s] defense and intelligence capabilities.”
An example Moolenaar gave is helping the PRC “achieve advancements in defense technologies from propellant combustion modeling and solid rocket fuel research to anti- corrosion technology for military aircraft developed with People’s Liberation Army (PLA) researchers.”
The ending of U-M’s Chinese partnership follows similar steps of closure Georgia Tech and UC Berkeley have taken with their partnerships, according to a news release from Moolenaar.
When the Association of American Universities (AAU) was reached for comment, senior VP for communications Winfield Boerckel told The Center Square that “research universities take very seriously the national security threats posed by certain international nation-state actors.”
U-M is a member of the AAU, an organization of research universities aiming to “help shape policy for higher education, science, and innovation.”
Boerckel additionally told The Center Square that “universities have a vested interest in protecting intellectual property, proprietary information, trade secrets and classified and/or otherwise controlled government information housed there.”
Sarah McLaughlin, senior scholar for Global Expression at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told TCS that “universities have pursued growing relationships with the Chinese government and partners in the country in recent decades without sufficient concern for what strains on academic freedom would develop.”
“Universities that maintain these ties should step back and re-evaluate their programs to ensure that they offer protections for academic freedom and, if not, should revise or terminate them,” McLaughlin said.
